


Hero

by Lobster



Series: A Year of Haymitch and Effie Drabbles [3]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 50th Hunger Games, Adorable, Celebrity Crush, Childhood, Crush at First Sight, Denial of Feelings, Drabble, F/M, First Crush, POV Female Character, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Present Tense, Pretending Not To Care, Secret Crush, Unrequited Crush, tiny!Effie, tiny!Effie Won't Admit She Doesn't Think Boys Are Icky Anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-06 23:17:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17949062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobster/pseuds/Lobster
Summary: Fifty-two weeks, fifty-two prompts, fifty-two drabbles; this work is part of a series of Haymitch/Effie drabbles inspired by one-word prompts. This week's prompt: hero.From the very start, she’s taken with the boy from District 12, the second boy, the very last name they picked this year. District 12 is usually nothing to write home about, but this year, last obviously means best.





	Hero

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the lovely and talented Juxtaposie as ever for the beta! <3

From the very start, she’s taken with the boy from District 12, the second boy, the very last name they picked this year. District 12 is usually nothing to write home about, but this year, last obviously means best. His intelligent grey eyes, his curly dark hair, his mysterious attitude - Effie has never felt this way about a tribute before. Her friends giggle and tell her she has a crush.

“Haymitch and Effie, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” they tease.

“Stop!” she cries, her hands covering her face. You can’t have a crush on someone from a _district_. That’s _wrong_. She just wants him to win. He seems nice. “He seems cute,” Andromeda says, and everyone but Effie bursts into giggles.

Why can’t they see that she’s _serious_? There’s something about him. She storms off in a huff and they laugh at her retreating back.

At home she tries to convince her father to bet on him, but he’s dead set on placing his money on one of the boys from District 2. “They’re the winners, Euphemia,” her father tells her. “Not some kid from the coal district.”

But with each passing day, Effie is proved more and more right. He’s one of only two tributes from his district to survive the bloodbath - something her father has to begrudgingly admit to her he didn’t expect. On the fourth day, the Gamemakers explode a huge volcano and with it go any chances he had this year of winning a little money - but Haymitch is still alive. And he stays alive. Her friends aren’t teasing her anymore.

Her father is still telling her not to get her hopes up when finally, on the twelfth day, after the worst battle she’s ever seen fought in the arena, he is crowned victor.

Her father tells her next year, she’s placing his bets. Effie is overcome with joy. She’s never had her tribute win before, and she’s so excited, for some reason, that it was this one in particular. Not because he’s cute. But because he’s smart, and he was so nice to that other girl from his district. She never saw anything like it before. She knew he was different, right from the start.

Haymitch Abernathy is her hero.


End file.
